Adobe Photoshop: The Tool Education for Beginners

The study of Adobe Photoshop is huge. It comprise of numerous things. Let’s peek-a-boo in the tool section of the software and where you can locate them. Let’s see:

The Marquee Tool: First thing that you need to know about this tool is that it is for making selection in the document that you are working on. It takes the selection in the shape of a rectangle. The expansion and deselecting the selected area is the same for all the selection tools. You have to press the shift key and keep clicking at the areas that you need to take under selection and to deselect, you just have to grab alt key with shift key. Wherever you will click, the selected area will be deselected. To blur your selection, you can feature it as the boundaries of the selection will get blur and you can differentiate it from rest of the image.

There are other selection tools also:

Elliptical: It creates a round selection just like the marquee tool creates rectangular selection. All other features of Elliptical tool are same as that of marquee tool.

Single Row: It will create a 1px selection row wise on the document. The horizontal selection stretches from left to right. It is the tool used for creating identical patterns.

Single Column: It will create a 1px selection column wise on the document. The vertical selection stretches from top to the bottom of the page.

Lasso Tools: Lasso Tool is used to make manual selections. You have to click the outline of the element that you need to select. The properties are same as that of Marquee tool. There are different types of Lasso Tool that can be used:

Polygonal Lasso: Polygonal Lasso tool works on a property of straight line. You can use this tool for straight outlines. It has its strict linear fashion to follow to make manual selections.

Magnetic Lasso: As comparative to Polygonal Lasso, Magnetic Lasso is very flexible and handy. You just have to drag the mouse according to the outline of the object. It automatically determines the edges and stick to them. It gives you more control while making manual selection.

The Quick Selection Tool: For making instant boundary selections of an object, you can find no other tool better than The Quick Selection Tool. The procession of the tool is instant and very handy to use. You just have to drag alongside the object to make selections.

Magic Wand Tool: To consider the best example of quick selection tool, you can refer Magic Wand tool. With the help of few clicks from your mouse, you can select the target area on the screen. You can also opt among the options if you want to select a particular spot or you want to cover some specific colored area.

The Move Tool: As its name specifies, it moves elements from one place to another. While you are working on current layer, you can simply use this tool and move the change the positioning of the elements on the screen. On making a selection to move some element from one place to another, you will have to use this tool for neatness of the task. That is why; move tool is the best to accomplish the task. If you do the task by auto-selecting the layers or groups, it will be very annoying while you are trying to work.

The Crop Tool: Cropping option is widely used in photo editing. The desired proportions are to be set to get optimum results. There are other tools that help you in carrying forward the endeavor of cropping such as:

Slice Tool: It is the tool that let you slice the object out from a graphic that can be further used on web. There is not much difference between a typical crop tool and slice tool. The only thing that creates a distinction is that slice tool is used for web copies. After slicing up the image, you will get sliced layers that can be later exported for the web.

Slice Select Tool: This tool lets you to select a slice and do the editing of the boundaries. With the help of this tool, you can make all feasible amendments before you can export the slices to web.

The Spot Healing Brush: It is not necessary that the images you are dealing with are flawless and cannot have any spots that are ruining the demeanor of the picture. For the correction of any kind of spots or blemishes in the picture, you can use spot healing brush. It process with the click of your finger on the mouse, targeting the to-be-corrected area. This tool is the most suitable option for eradicating the glitch away. Spot Healing Brush has further supporting tools mentioned below:

The Healing Brush Tool: It’s easy to use the tool as you just have to click at the blemished area in the image, click the mouse at the target and delete the anomaly. Alt key is used to select the area where brush is to be used.

Patch Tool: The functionality of this tool is simply the best. It is used to insert a patch at the blemished portion. You can make selection, just like the lasso tool of the portion that is to be patched at the blemished area. The selection is taken at the bugged portion and left over it. In this way, you can get the final product as if there were never any blemishes on the picture.

The Red Eye: This tool has the function to omit red eye bugs from the picture. You just have to select the option, take your mouse to the target area and click to remove red eye. It instantly makes the correction. You don’t necessarily have to use this tool on the eye as it can also be used for correcting red spots outside the eye as well.

The Brush Tool: Brush tool is one of the most frequently used tool in Photoshop. It is a perfect addition to your stock of usable options. This tool helps a lot in retouching the images. The size of the brush is flexible and you can increase or decrease it according to your requirement. Other alterations that are incorporate with this invincible feature are: smoothness of the brush, shape, flow, texture, opacity and action. The incorporated features are:

Pencil Tool: Just like you use the pencil on a paper, this tool has same functionality. The only difference is that you have to use the mouse as a pencil and drag it on the Photoshop canvas. It allows you to write or draw whatever you like on the graphical canvas.

Mixer Brush Tool: Anyone that is looking forward to create real media with the help of paint tools in Photoshop, Media Brush tool is the most appropriate option that can come to your rescue. It has the tendency to give most realistic look to the image. There are numerous brushes that are tagged up along-with the tool that can be used easily.

The Eyedropper Tool: Colors has definite significance in creation of a masterpiece. You cannot memorize the code of every color so when you want to use exact same color, you have the privilege to use eyedropper tool. It is used to sample the color wherever your mouse is pointing, after enabling the option. There are various other uses of this tool that works adeptly.

The Ruler Tool: This tools help in making actuate measurements of the images. It can also be used to straighten the pictures.

Color Sampler Tool: With the help of Color Sample Tool, you can sample up to 4 different areas within your picture. The sampling is done so that to enlighten yourself about the presence of colors in the picture.

Count Tool: In an image, when you need to assimilate and take in account the number of objects, you can take help of count tool. It mentions the numbers on the objects in the picture. This also helps in keeping the track of the objects. You can also use the tool for group numbering i.e. creating multiple groups of objects in a single image.

Note Tool: While using Photoshop documents, note tool is used significantly. It allows you to insert a note wherever required. It is an awesome alliance and preferably used in organizing the workflow. For any kind of organizational projects, note tool is notably used.

Clone Stamp Tool: Many times in Photoshop, you have to create copies of the objects. Clone tool is used to copy data from one region to other in a picture. The usage is quite simple as you just have to press the alt key and hold on to the targeted area. Click at the image and drag it, you will see the clone of the picture right at your screen.

Pattern Stamp Tool: It is just like a pattern brush that helps you to fill selected pattern in the required region of the image.

The Eraser Tool: Whenever you need to eradicate an object from the image, without hampering the overall outlook, you can use eraser tool. It is also a brush like tool where you can adjust opacity, size and sharpness of the eraser according to your requirements. There are two types of eraser features available in Photoshop:

Background Eraser Tool: It is simple in usage. Whenever you have to remove background, you just need to drag the tool at the boundaries and same colored area will be deleted in one go. Although, you will be left with certain imperfections in the image but you can work on them with the help of other tools available in Photoshop.

Magic Eraser Tool: Magic Eraser is a quick tool. The area to be omit is selected in one go and with the help of single click, you will end up with the desired results. Sometimes, the tool also incorporates areas that are not necessary for the final product. That is why it requires a lot of hit and trial method.

Gradient Tool: For creating an amalgam of two or more colors, you can use gradient tool. The opacity, angles, and number of colors to be used while creating the gradient can be determined. You can also use paint bucket tool where the color can be filled in a particular area.

Pen Tool: People practicing artwork in Photoshop can take advantage of pen tool that helps in drawing paths. The paths can be used around the object while making a presentation. This helps in influencing the object by highlighting it. The options associated with this tool are:

Freedom Pen Tool: This tool let you to draw around or on the image. It also helps you to add anchor along the way. It is easy to draw using this tool.

Add Anchor Point Tool: With the help of this tool, you can insert an anchor at any point you like.

Delete Anchor Point: This tool lets you to delete anchor.

Convert Point Tool: To give a shape, you can use this tool, drag the line from the anchor and create required design.

Smudge Tool: This tool also works like a brush and smudges the images into the background. The objects get blended in to the colors of the background. There are two tools associated with this tool, Sharpen Tool and Blur Tool. With the help of Sharpen tool, you can highlight the areas of an image but painting them manually. Blur tool allow you to blur specific areas of the image, as per your requisites. It helps with the sharp transitions of the image.

There is a list of other tools that are quite useful in Photoshop such as Camera Tool, 3D Tool, Hand Tool, Zoom Tool, Shape Tool, Path Selection Tool, etc. All in all, Photoshop is wonder software for all designers to make epic designs by putting in minimal efforts.